Michael Enright is expected to be sentenced to 9 and a half years in prison for the 2010 bias attack

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In this 2010 file photo, Michael Enright is seen in court following his arrest.

A college student who repeatedly slashed a Muslim taxi driver in a 2010 bias attack pleaded guilty on Tuesday to attempted murder and assault as hate crimes for attacking a cabbie who was driving him home.

Michael Enright is expected to be sentenced to nine and a half years in prison in the plea deal, admitting that he intentionally slashed the driver in the throat, trying to kill him because of his ethnicity.

Enright later declared to police that he was "a patriot," prosecutors said. He had initially told officers he'd tried to defend himself because Sharif was trying to rob him -- a suspicion-deflecting tactic that showed he had some presence of mind, prosecutors said.

Upon Enright's arrest, his lawyer has said the film student was deeply disturbed by what he saw while shooting a documentary about the war in Afghanistan, where he was briefly embedded with combat troops.